Sugar streamby
NiallOTuamaComment by Skip: i like it, but i don't see much dpc-love coming here...
i'll give you a few ideas, but probably the best thing you can do is to read
scalvert's post on
how to win a ribbon.
it's really hard to separate yourself from what you have produced, but you must be objective. before shooting, establish just what it is that you want to achieve. define your subject. articulate your vision.
then, you are ready to shoot.
when you start reviewing what you shot, you have to be honest in evaluating whether or not you got what you were after. sometimes, things just don't work out. half of my most recent entries were entered simply because i was on a dpl team; those images barely worked for me, and they most decidedly did not work for dpc. had it not been for the team, they never would have been entered.
one of the absolutes that dpc demands is technical perfection; and, with a set up shot like this, that is something that can be achieved with work. let me try to quickly run through some of the issues on this shot of yours.
the motion isn't readily apparent, nor is it very dynamic. even though it's there, it's not really
enhancing the subject. for those reasons, you're probably missing points for meeting the challenge. so, you have to ask yourself is this the most interesting/captivating way to convey your idea, or should you have gone with something else, like pouring a liquid?
technically, you have a very, very shallow depth of field and the focus seems to be
behind the stream, not on it. that's costing you major points. that and the lighting. these are things that are easily solvable, especially while shooting. since you can't do this without a tripod, you have almost unlimited opportunity to try every possible combination of settings between AV, TV, and focus points to find an image that realizes your vision.
along those lines, when you are working in a studio-like setting, you also have the opportunity to play with all types of lighting set-ups. there is hardly anything automatic about lighting, but if you work at it enough, you will get a handle on it. check out the following image of mine; be sure to look at the follow-up attempt in my image notes. my problem was that i simply did not allow enough time to figure out how to realize my vision.
i'm not going to fault your composition, although more of the stream and less of the mess would help. if you were to start over, with a clean surface, empty bowl, and an
extremely long shutter, pouring slowly, you could probably capture a nice, interesting set of motions (the stream, the bowl filling, the spillage accumulating). again, this is the nice thing about set-up shots: you are only limited by deadline as to how many efforts you want to make. just keep in mind, learning is not a matter of repeating the same thing over and over and expecting the different result; it's a matter of trying different things
on purpose and understanding the difference between your results.
hope this helps. good luck in the future!
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